Conrad infuses the novel with this theme of evil, and just about every chapter references the Belgians, the natives, and their struggles with each other. Critic Bloom continues, "Imperialist corruption is anatomized in sharp, visual images, and a clear moral viewpoint is presented, a scheme of values preserved by Marlow in his devotion to the work ethic" (Bloom 35)
Throughout this novel, Conrad shows the greed of the Belgians who subjugate the natives and take away the only life they have ever known. Early in the book he makes this aim clear when one of the minor characters says, "They [the early Belgians who took over] were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force - nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising form the weakness of others" (Conrad 4)
At last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men." (Conrad 66)
It looked at you with a vengeful aspect. I got used to it afterwards; I did not see it anymore; I had no time" (Conrad 135)
She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress (Conrad, III)
Jung referred to the shadow as the "often dangerous…primitive, uncivilized, pre-evolutionary past of the species. The shadow is represented as jealousy and repressed desires like avarice, aspects which most people would prefer not to recognize as part of their being" (Schmuhl & Guches 2003)
As such, it is a striking demonstration both of the way that that colonialism impacted the culture and condition in the developing sphere and, perhaps unintentionally, of the way that the Western intelligentsia of which Conrad was a part perceived those who were colonized. (Achebe 1977, p
As such, it is a striking demonstration both of the way that that colonialism impacted the culture and condition in the developing sphere and, perhaps unintentionally, of the way that the Western intelligentsia of which Conrad was a part perceived those who were colonized. (Achebe 1977, p
Conrad, through Marlow, tells that "native mats covered the clay walls; a collection of spears, assagais, shields, knives, was hung up in trophies." (Conrad, p
As Miller points out, "the 'haze' is there all around on a dark night, but, like the meaning of one of Marlow's tales, it is invisible, inaudible, intangible in itself, like the darkness, or like that 'something great and invincible' Marlow is aware of in the African wilderness, something 'like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing way of this fantastic invasion.'" (Miller, p
Kurtz against the deeply dysfunctional postcolonial landscape of the Belgian Congo would be received as an honest and objective portrayal of the after effects of colonialism with all its attendant racial hierarchy and exploitation. And yet, the text's source is a European himself, Polish-born and largely educated in Russia (Nassab, p
Kurtz has abandoned any sense of loyalty, along with his decency, to pander to his own desires and emotions. Terence Bowers states that the novel is similar to Dante's Inferno in that Marlow's journey is much like an underworld in which the "moral structure of the world created by European imperialism" (Bowers)
Marlow's encounters with Kurtz reveal the frailty of the human soul but it takes him some time to realize this. Marlow explains how Kurtz is a "gifted" (Conrad 294) man whose "sympathies were in the right place" (295)
John Jervis aggress with this notion, adding that the novel explores darkness. He states that "Africa is dark even in the sunlight; but the darkness is the darkness of the primeval, not the darkness of evil" (Jervis 68)
Marlow is the narrator that must tell the story because Kurtz is too far gone. Kaplan points out that throughout the novel, Marlow "insists upon the distinction between truth and lies; between men and women; between civilization and savagery; and, most of all, between Self and Other" (Kaplan)
The novel also opens up the debate over the issue of imperialism. Hunt Hawkins claims that when examining the novel, we should bear in mind that Conrad had "two explicit criteria" (Hawkins 288) in which to judge imperialism
Morel discusses the systematic destruction of trade in the Congo, which began with a relatively equitable relationship between the native residents and the newly arrived white traders and explorers but which devolved, through the use of force and theft, into what Morel terms "the New African Slave Trade" (Morel 170). This new slave trade and the attendant horrors it brought to the Congo are the context of Heart of Darkness, and bearing this in mind will allow one to better understand the intended message of the novella, because as William Atkinson notes in his essay "Bound in Blackwood's: The Imperialism of "The Heart of Darkness" in Its Immediate Context," "Conrad remarked in a letter to William Blackwood [the original publisher of Heart of Darkness] that he thought the subject of his African story very much 'of our time,'" meaning that the novel "dealt with imperialism, specifically with King Leopold's colonial project in central Africa" (Atkinson 368)
To begin with, it will be useful to acknowledge the complexity of Conrad's argument, noted when the narrator remarks that to Marlow, "the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel, but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of these misty halos that, sometimes, are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine" (Conrad 5). The narrator contrasts Marlow with the tales told by the rest of the seamen, and this contrast is interpreted by Patrick Bratlinger in his essay "Imperialism, Impressionism, and the Politics of Style," to mean that "locating the 'meaning' of the story will not be easy," or even "may in fact be impossible" (Bratlinger 387)
Having discussed the immediate context of the novella, both in terms of the racial ideologies at work at the time of its publication as well as the realities of the region in which it is set, one may now examine critical receptions of the story as a means of orienting this essay's central claim; that is, that Heart of Darkness actually uses the language and concepts of imperialism and colonialism to argue against the horrors inflicted by these ideological forces. To begin with, it will be useful to acknowledge the complexity of Conrad's argument, noted when the narrator remarks that to Marlow, "the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel, but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of these misty halos that, sometimes, are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine" (Conrad 5)
Finally, before addressing the text itself, it will be useful to examine one further critical reception of Heart of Darkness, in this case one which offers a means of understanding Heart of Darkness as an anticolonialist and anti-imperialist text. In their essay "Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Postcolonial Study," Noorbakhsh Hooti and Masoud Ahmadi Mousaabad analyze a number of different responses to the novella (including the aforementioned Said essay) in order to uncover how the novella can "provide a docking point for such a vast range of personalities, attitudes and ideologies," ultimately revealing that in spite of what Chinua Achebe calls Conrad's "racist discourse and narratives," Heart of Darkness ultimately serves to point out the atrocities of imperialism and colonialism, even it must do so via the "discourse and narratives" of those ideologies (Hooti & Mousaabad 64, 66)